


Courtship Rites

by Phoebe_Zeitgeist



Category: Ginyuu Mokushiroku Meine Liebe | Meine Liebe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Zeitgeist/pseuds/Phoebe_Zeitgeist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Temporary note, moments before reveal:  If by some peculiar chance you're considering reading this thing for the first time now?  DON"T.  Compulsive reviser is revising, and a new version will be up in a couple of days.  If you look now you'll be disappointed.</p><p>Really.  I mean it.  Don't read this yet, okay?</p><p>Fanfic by its nature is a collaborative form, which is my excuse for writing a kind of sequel to a previous Yuletide fic in this fandom, "The Plane to Lisbon."  Comments at the old Yuletide archive make me hope that Quillori, for whom this is written, will not mind too much.  Anyone else attempting to read it should be warned, though, that it will likely make no sense at all to anyone who has not read the earlier story.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Courtship Rites

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quillori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/gifts).



> Temporary note, moments before reveal: If by some peculiar chance you're considering reading this thing for the first time now? DON"T. Compulsive reviser is revising, and a new version will be up in a couple of days. If you look now you'll be disappointed.
> 
> Really. I mean it. Don't read this yet, okay?
> 
> Fanfic by its nature is a collaborative form, which is my excuse for writing a kind of sequel to a previous Yuletide fic in this fandom, "The Plane to Lisbon." Comments at the old Yuletide archive make me hope that Quillori, for whom this is written, will not mind too much. Anyone else attempting to read it should be warned, though, that it will likely make no sense at all to anyone who has not read the earlier story.

On the first day he had risen early to watch the stars fall, and so he was awake when they came for him.

It was an optical illusion, the starfall, one whose precise nature was still a matter of debate: something reflective sunk beneath the clear waters of the lake (mica? shards of mirrors broken in the catastrophe that left the High City in ruins? Rheingold, on extended tour from its home river?) that reflected back the light of the rising moon or sun. You could see it from these upper windows when conditions were favorable: clear air and no wind, and moonrise or sunrise at the right angle, no more than once or twice in a year at most. On this May night it was faint, but still grand to see: the wheeling stars falling beyond the hills on the western horizon, vanishing for a few minutes only to reappear in the caldera and fall slowly through its depths to the bottom, as though the earth itself were a great hollow sphere of glass that bore those distant hills as an artist's whimsey, painted on its surface.

He heard the sounds in the house below him without any great surprise. They were acting quietly, which was good: the Government he ostensibly served would have been noisy. It was sooner than he had expected, but no matter. They had finished burning the confidential files and ciphers yesterday, had dismantled all the equipment that might be difficult to explain and destroyed the pieces the day before. Josef, who might have been a liability, was out of reach, travelling with the diplomatic pouch on the first stage of the journey that would take him home, or to some other assignment, or to his death.

He did not go armed here, in what had been his own house, but the men on the stairs would naturally wish to be sure of that. So he took off his coat and set it aside, and opened the chamber door wide so that they would see that nothing and no man could be hidden behind it, and let his hands fall loose and visibly empty to his sides; and returned to the window to look at the skies as he waited for them; and then after they had come and he had explained they watched with him while the light lasted, as the stars fell through the water to their rest with the turning of the world.

 

They were Ludwig's people, and therefore nominally his allies, but it would have been foolish to presume too much upon that. They were courteous, even deferential, but it was evident that they considered him to be in their custody, and they would tell him nothing. So he was left to amuse himself with speculation based on what little he could observe. A small team: just sufficient to secure the house and replace the usual light guard: this was an arrest, then. Not a rescue from anticipated arrest, or they would tell him what they were about: it was easier to travel with an ally than with a prisoner. And not a lightning raid, for the hours went by with no preparations for withdrawal. Messengers came and went on the floors below, and midmorning a detachment left on what might have been a secondary mission.

He had expected that they would bring him to some more secure location, as soon as conditions allowed; but when they did move him, toward the end of the day, it was only across the house, from the King Victor suite that was customarily used for important guests to one of the family apartments. By then the undercurrent of tension had altered, subtly, from the nerves of men engaged in great events to the nerves of men who have won a great victory without having been allowed the opportunity to exhaust all of their energy in the field. The house rang with the change, D minor to D major, majestic as the shift from winter to spring. They left champagne for him in the new rooms, as if apologizing for keeping him away from whatever celebrations were taking place elsewhere, in the kitchens or city or palace; or as if in invitation to celebrate with them. But they would still tell him nothing, and the celebrations felt infinitely removed from where he stood. These rooms looked out on the inner court and the gardens, and in this springtime, with leaves unfurling on lime and chestnut, city and street were hidden from their windows. Even the sounds of the city were muted and distant, infinitely removed behind wall upon wall of living green.

By the second day, it was clear that the effective information blackout was not an accident. His rotating guard would talk to him about horses or handguns; they would bring him coffee or, if he had wanted it, tobacco. They would even bring him newspapers, but the newspapers were printing under heavy regulation, and their contents were bland and useless. The same would undoubtedly be true of the radio, so it was not worth being irritated at the knowledge that they would be fools to give him one. Nor would they tell him anything about why he was being held, or how long he could expect this to continue. They were as pleasant about it as they had been before -- yes, Excellency, it was a great pity for them all to be mewed up indoors this way, on a spring morning like this, and after such a winter -- but they were immovable. So he let it go as counterproductive, at least for the time being. It was even comfortable, in its way: since escape was not reasonably possible there was no point in evaluating it as an option. He had books, and he had a puzzle to solve from the handful of clues offered by his arrest. Properly regarded it was like a little holiday in Shangri-La, or in a rather bookish Venusburg: it could hardly be regarded as detention at all.

On the fifth day Eduard appeared, sending in his card as though the sergeant of the guard were Beruze's secretary, and following on his heels as though Eduard were a petitioner afraid of being told he had no appointment. He carried a dispatch case, but not a sidearm. "It's not about you," he said as the door closed behind him, showing all his old uncanny ability to respond to what Beruze was thinking. "It's civic virtue on display. In times of crisis, when the public needs to have confidence in the restoration of law and order, only soldiers and police should be armed. And it is for members of the social order who have traditionally expected to walk around the city armed to set a good example." He grinned. "I quote, or close enough. I am not in uniform; therefore, I am not armed. -- I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner."

"You needn't be," Beruze told him. "It's been quite extraordinarily pleasant, as arrests go. My hospitality might not be entirely what it was, but for reasons that remain wholly opaque to me I can offer you an excellent sherry from the Liechtenstein cellars."

"I hope you're not asking me for an explanation. I know nothing. Not why you're under guard, not why you have access to the cellar, and certainly not why you've moved across the house where there's no piano."

"Oh, that." He settled back into his chair, shrugging a little. "That it's across the house is interesting, isn't it? But a move is sensible enough. If I'm under house arrest, the security services naturally want me out of rooms where I had an opportunity to conceal weapons or communications equipment. If I'm in protective custody, they don't want me in the rooms where an assassin would look for me first. Did you have trouble getting clearance?"

"Practically the opposite. Only I wasn't in the city for the first three days, and then Lui wasn't. When I finally saw him today he didn't even ask what I wanted, just told me that since was going to see you I could make myself useful as a courier." He lifted the dispatch box to the table and slid it toward Beruze. "I suppose we've all come to know each other a little too well, these past years."

"Direct talks with the Americans?" He caught Eduard's glance. "Never mind. If his majesty has pressed you into messenger service, I imagine I had better have a look at whatever he's sent."

"Oh, God," Eduard said. He raised one hand melodramatically to his forehead. "Don't call him that where he can hear it." He slid the case toward Beruze, along with an intricate key. "It is my duty to remind you that Ludwig Herzog von Mohn is not the king, that he would very much prefer not to be the king, thank you. He's going to deny it until the Strahl collectively back him into the cathedral and force the crown down onto his head. Which likely won't be very much longer, so his temper's worse than ever about it."

"I suppose it would be. He has no way out now." He was working the lock as he spoke, and paused as the dreadful thought struck him. "He can't be intending to foist it off on me. Ludwig has a useful sort of pragmatic ruthlessness, but sadly for him his sense of responsiblity is stronger. Besides, it's not clear that the kingdom would stand for it if he did try."

Eduard laughed and shook his head. "If you're looking for enlightenment from me, you have the wrong man. I told you, I don't know what this is about, none of us do, not even Naoji." His voice changed a little. "I don't know if it helps, but I don't think it's bad, whatever it is. Not about the old charges, I mean."

Beruze looked up at him, but Eduard was staring at the floor. "No. If it were that, he wouldn't have let you see me. Or not without arguing, and making pointed yet strangely nonspecific comments about scandal and prudence and judgment." He reached again for the dispatch case. "At any rate, whatever he's sent may tell us something."

"Might tell you something," Eduard said. The humor was back in his voice. "I don't have clearance for it. Which -- "

"Precisely," Beruze said, interrupting him. "It's curious, isn't it, that of all the people in this household I apparently have the highest security clearance?" He flipped open the box, turning the lid so that the contents were shielded from Eduard's view.

There was no memorandum inside the case, and no letter: just three parcels, two substantial and one less so, each sealed with the crane-in-its-vigilance sigil of Royal Intelligence. He glanced again to Eduard, but got only an elaborate shrug in return: _Don't ask me, nobody tells me anything._ "Sealed with wax," he said. "I have received them intact, and am breaking the seals in your presence."

He took the heaviest of the three first, as presumably the most difficult. There was an index of documents here, at least, enough to allow a preliminary assessment of the contents. Events in the U.S.S.R. over the past dozen years: radical collectivization and famine in Ukraine. Party purges, the targets selected apparently at random, as if by a security apparatus that had been given a quota and no guidance. An ever-increasing cult of personality around the leader. The analytic work was in English for the most part, and marked as American, but the raw source material accompanying it looked authentic. He would need to review all of this carefully and make his own assessments.

The second parcel, and here was a photograph, one familiar face and three that were unfamiliar: the Ishizuki family. The index listed documents in German and in English, related to the war in the East and to politics within the Imperial court. Diplomatic reports and analysis, for the most part, from the English and German embassies in Tokyo, shared among senior allies. Obtained from the English, who had not previously thought to share it with their Cockaigne allies. Excesses of war in Nanking, in Manchuria, in the Pacific islands, hidden at first and attributed now to orders from the circle closest to the Emperor. Relationships between certain members of the Court and the Ishizuki family. Hints, here and there, that responsibility for those orders might be sourced instead to Ishizuki Tadashi in the event of Imperial notice and displeasure. Or, should the war be lost, in the event of Allied notice and prosecution.

And the third parcel, thinner than the others, with a name in it that was and was not his own. He closed that one at once. He should review it carefully, no doubt, but it could wait until he had finished with the other two.

He set them down on the table, gently, with the third folder buried beneath the others. "These are not papers one leaves lying about like half-read novels, even here. There is a safe in the house, but I no longer have access to it. I suppose he gave you instructions?"

Eduard smiled, finally: his old carefree smile. "Oh, yes. He said that it would be helpful if I could arrange to stay until you were finished reviewing them and carried them back myself. No one on your security detail has sufficient clearance to do it."

Beruze turned the first two files over in his hands once more, assessing weight. "You had better notify them downstairs that you will be here for dinner, then, and well into the night. This is likely to take some time."

"Yes," said Eduard, still grinning. "Lui said that, too."

Analysis, he had always found, was like an optical puzzle: you took in the information, and then let your mind sift it until the trick came clear. There was often some little delay. So it was no great surprise to him that it was only late that night when he saw it, late enough that Eduard was asleep beside him, that he was mostly asleep himself when his own laughter woke him. "It's a riddle," he said aloud.

Eduard did not answer, and for some minutes Beruze thought he had not woken. Then his eyes snapped open. "What is?"

"Ludwig's documents. Tell him I can give him the answer, whenever he cares to hear it."

Eduard put an arm across his eyes and groaned. "What, _now_?"

"Well, perhaps not precisely now," Beruze agreed. "It's an answer that can wait until sunrise."


End file.
